Bacon, chicken, red wine…what’s not to love? Forgive my absence; I’ve been on a food writing course at the weekends over May and June, which has taken up all of the food writing time in my life. I’m back with a vengeance however, and with a few …
Herman came into my life my accident.  My plans were to have morning tea with my sister and gorgeous little niece.  This did happen.  But what I didn’t expect was to leave my sister’s house with my very first sour dough starter for my own Herman the …
It was time to slay the mighty parsley-beasts. Â I felt a little regretful about this, as they had done me proud by growing all green and bountiful, despite my doing very little to help them. Â But, many leaves had been picked for many dishes, and now the beasts had gone to seed.
My parsley-beasts looked a little sad all uprooted and laid out on my deck:
My garden likes very much to grown parsley, which has left me with similar questions in the past about what one should do with the crop. Â This was an unprecedented situation because rather than just a mere glut, I had several large plants’ worth of the stuff. Â And when I think ‘something that uses an unholy amount of herbs,’ I think ‘pesto.’
As I’m sure you know, traditional pesto is made from basil, pine nuts, olive oil, parmesan and Fiore Sardo, a sheep’s milk cheese.  Its name comes from the Genovese word ‘to pound,’ and some even say it lends itself to the English word ‘pestle’, as in ‘mortar and.’
Apparently the Ancient Romans themselves ate a paste called ‘moretum,’ consisting of herbs, cheese and oil. Â This was of particular interest to me, as my only memories of food and the Ancient Romans, scraped from the dim, dusty part of my brain labelled Third Form Latin Class, were that stuffed field mice were typically on the menu. Â How unfair of me. Â I shall be contacting the editors of Ecce Romani forthwith to suggest a showcasing of moretum and pesto.
It seems to me that these days, we are increasingly embracing any number of nut, cheese and herb combinations for our pesto. Â The parsley pesto I have made here, based on this parsley pesto recipe, contains walnuts, almonds, parmesan and olive oil. I made it like so..
My ingredients (note: I had a HEAP of parsley, so needed a heap of everything else and in turn made a heap of pesto – you could quite easily halve or quarter this and still have a respectable amount):
I toasted the almonds and walnuts of the stove-top in a non-stick frying pan until they were all golden and smelling tasty.
I ripped the parsley into smaller bits with my hands, and added it to the bowl of my food processor, along with the toasted nuts, parmesan, olive oil and plenty of ground black pepper. Â I processed it until it made a smooth paste, adding a little salt and squeezing in some lemon to taste along the way.
I wound up with 6 jars of roughly 250mls capacity, meaning that a few friends and family members had pesto thrust upon them.  Our first meal with the bounty was a salad with roasted potato, shredded poached chicken and plenty of pesto. This pesto is rather tasty slathered on freshly toasted bread, and I am reliably informed it tops pasta quite nicely too.
Happy gardening and eating.
This idea came to me by accident, really.  I’m always a fan of shortbread, so any excuse for that.  But the orange part happened when a lonely orange, languishing in the fruit bowl, happened to cross my field of vision whilst I was enjoying a Sunday morning …
We have recently started smoking. Â No, not the nicotine kind (don’t worry Mum!), the charcoal kind. Â And my is it fun. Our little smoker cost us the princely sum of $50, half price on the GrabOne daily deals website. Â I think it looks a bit …
Lucky me, to receive this lovely baking book for my birthday from my similarly kitchen-obsessed little sister.  Alice Arndell’s Alice in Bakingland is a treat for the eyes as much as anything, full of pictures of dainty plates, matching teacup-and-saucer sets, all showing off delightful mounds of delicious cakes and biscuits.  Squeal!
It simply wouldn’t be a summer holiday without a little cold beer, would it? And luckily the remote, beautiful Coromandel Peninsula, the current holiday location, was happy to oblige us with the the Hot Water Brewery. You find this little delight on the Tairua-Whitianga Road, …
Hello everyone, this shan’t be my usual post with recipe, or even a very long one – the Mister and I are on holiday, currently in the beautiful Bay of Plenty, NZ, at the dazzling Papamoa Beach. But I thought I might share a few …
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am fortunate to have parentals who kindly bring me ingredients from their travels, with which I can then experiment. Â And so today, I’m going to tell you all about my fun with a bottle of coconut syrup, which I understand comes from this shop in Dunedin (although originally hailing from the warmer climes of Bali).
The label informs me that this product is ‘the maple syrup of the tropics’ Â and is made from the ‘sweet, energised water produced by living coconut trees.’ Â I don’t know exactly what it takes for water to be energised, but perhaps this explains the current craze for coconut water.
The label also instructs me to ‘get ready for a sensational eating experience most people can only dream of.’ Â This is a bold claim.
My friend the internet did not yield a great deal of recipes including coconut syrup, so I was on my own on this one. Â I settled on the idea of a coconut loaf , comforting, tasty, and most importantly, probably agreeable enough to coconut syrup.
I have more or less shamelessly cribbed my recipe from this one, electing to include my syrup in place of the rum. Â Not that I have anything against rum, but the only spirit currently in my house is gin, and I don’t think gin and coconut loaf would have a lot going for it.
I started off by setting the oven to 180C, greasing a loaf tin and lining its base. Â Then I sifted together:
To this, I stirred in:
In another bowl, I beat together:
And now, it was time for the coconut syrup. Â I wrenched off the lid and it was a tense moment – would it deliver the promised taste sensation that others can only dream of?
Well dear reader, it is intensely sweet, thick, a lovely rich dark brown colour, and not at all unpleasant. Â But I think I am still waiting for a taste sensation of the promised magnitude.
Not to worry, I then added to the yoghurt, oil and eggs mixture:
I folded the yoghurt mixture into the dry ingredients until blended and scraped it into the greased, lined tin. Â I baked the loaf until a skewer inserted into the middle came out clean, which took one hour ten minutes in my oven, and I covered the top of the loaf with foil to prevent burning for the last ten minutes.
I decided this cake would do well with some icing, mainly because I really, really love icing. Â I made a lime icing by mixing together icing sugar, butter, a little hot water and the juice of the lime, which I slathered over the loaf when cool.
The verdict? This recipe makes a moist, substantial loaf which leaves you feeling satisfied that you are getting something hearty and filling. Â Full credit to the original recipe for providing such a simple method yielding such a lovely loaf. Â I must confess however, that I am not convinced the coconut syrup added a huge amount to the process. Â The label does include the suggestion that one may like to try it on ice cream or pancakes, and I do think it would be most pleasing in this form, even if my baking with it is not about to take the world by storm.
Take care readers, and do alert me should any coconut syrup deliver you the taste sensation previously only dreamt of in coming days.
I have come into possession of two fruity items this week – a lovely big batch of stewed apples courtesy of my sister, and a tin of strawberries. Yes, tinned strawberries, what a strange thing indeed. Â I found them in the supermarket on special for …